California glyphosate warning requirement on hold

In a win for farm groups and pesticide companies, a federal judge has temporarily halted a cancer warning requirement for products sold in California that contain the herbicide glyphosate. For now, however, glyphosate will remain on the state’s list of chemicals known to cause cancer. California listed glyphosate as a known carcinogen on July 7, 2017, under its Proposition 65 law. That listing would have triggered a warning requirement effective July 7, 2018. Monsanto, which makes the glyphosate-based herbicide Roundup; farm groups; and others sued California in November, claiming that the Prop 65 listing and warning requirement would compel them “to make false, misleading, and highly controversial statements about their products.” The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California agreed that the required warnings would be “false and misleading.” In a Feb. 26 order, the court stated that “almost all other regulators have concluded that there is insufficient evidence that glyphosate causes cancer.” The court ruled that products containing glyphosate do not need to comply with the warning requirement while the case is still ongoing.